Millionaire fitness queen’s jail romance

CrossFit co-founder Lauren Jenai plans to marry accused murderer Franklin Tyrone Tucker while he’s in a Florida jail — and the multi-millionaire fitness guru said she’s not even making him sign a prenup.

The New York Post previously reported that Jenai — the ex-wife and former business partner of CrossFit mastermind Greg Glassman — struck up a relationship with her former high school classmate Mr Tucker on Facebook, but he was then arrested on first-degree murder charges with two other men in a Florida Keys case known as the “Tree House Murder”.

In the bizarre crime, a man who came to the aid of a neighbour being robbed at knifepoint was stabbed to death.

Mr Tucker maintains his innocence.

Ms Jenai — who reportedly sold her CrossFit shares for up to $20 million as part of her messy split from Glassman in 2013 — had told the Post how she fell for Mr Tucker during their video chats.

“We hadn’t seen each other in 30 years … We started having feelings for each other … We’re going to get married,” the 47-year-old said.

She’s been fighting for Mr Tucker’s freedom and the two plan to wed when he got out on bail. But his bail was denied at a January 29 hearing.

Ms Jenai now says they’ll tie the knot at the detention centre where he’s been locked up since 2017.

She told the Post, “We would be allowed to have a wedding in jail … (we) would get to be together for the first time in the same room” during their courtship.

She’s hoping the nuptials will be this summer, in part so she can begin to medically advocate for Mr Tucker, who she said suffers from two hernias.

She added she won’t have Mr Tucker sign a prenup: “Our relationship is very open and we are a team. I trust him. I love him. My house is his house. A prenup feels a little inappropriate.”

However, there’s even more pressure for them to be together because Ms Jenai’s been barred from video visitation with Tucker for a whopping 100 years, after an incident in February.

“You’re not supposed to expose yourself or wear racy clothes. But we have a very close connection,” Ms Jenai, who lives in Oregon, told the Post. “Our love transcends concrete walls. We’ve never been together, we’ve never touched in that way. Obviously those feelings come up.”

During one of the video sessions with “Ty,” “I got a little risque. I was touching my boobs,” she admitted. “I got a warning — the warning came up. I stopped.” But her account to chat with the inmate was then suspended for three years.

Undeterred, Ms Jenai contacted Mr Tucker via her mum’s account. But “The heat of the moment sometimes gets the best of you. I want to be as good a fiancee to him … my boobs popped out at some point, it happens.” She said she received no warning at the time.

Ms Jenai then travelled to Florida last month to a bail hearing for Mr Tucker — for which she and power lawyer Robert Hantman had been fighting. Mr Tucker’s accused with two other men of first-degree murder and other charges — including robbery with a deadly weapon — in a heist gone wrong.

After the incident with the video chat, Ms Jenai received a notice that her mother’s video visitation account was suspended for “100 years.” And “orders came down to take (Tucker) to solitary (confinement). They didn’t even tell him why,” she claimed. “After the bond hearing, apparently they went back and looked at a bunch of our videos over time,” she told us. “Appointments have been cancelled, and suspended for 100 years.”

But, Ms Jenai said, “I did something wrong … I violated the conditions of the video visitation and I accept that. He didn’t do anything wrong — he wasn’t doing anything explicit, he wasn’t touching himself.”

She believes that there’s a campaign to “deter my involvement” in the case. “I keep him sane. They get you in jail and they leave you there, and you get so frustrated that you make deals and plea to things you haven’t done.” She said she feels that “they’re trying to break him down and to scare me away”.

Ms Jenai said that in addition to the video visits, the two used to talk on the phone every night. “We laugh,” she added.

This story originally appeared on The New York Post and was reproduced with permission